Background music for your museum, without Buma and Sena
RadioMatic lets you decide per room what plays and where it stays quiet, with your own announcements in the hall and the café. Because the music is made entirely by AI, no payments are due to Buma/Stemra and Sena.
You easily pay
€ 2,719
a year to Buma/Stemra and Sena
If you play music in your business, this bill is compulsory. The amount is the base rate for the worked example below, and your music subscription comes on top of it.
Work out what you pay nowWith RadioMatic you pay
€ 29.99
per location per month, billed yearly
= € 360 a year, everything included
The Starter plan, excluding VAT. No payment is due to Buma/Stemra or Sena, so this is the whole amount. There is a free plan as well.
Fourteen days free to try. Monthly billing is available and costs 20% more, and only then can you cancel monthly. Once your application is approved, usually within five working days, your station is live in ten minutes.
What else you get
In a museum it depends on the room. A display with audio of its own, a film or a sound installation by the artist does not take music over the top of it. There silence is the only good setting. In the entrance hall, the cloakroom, the museum café and the shop it is different. With RadioMatic you set every zone separately, including when you want nothing to play there. You switch it on and off yourself, without calling anyone.
Where music does fit, the DJ moments make your own announcements. For instance that the guided tour starts at three, that the exhibition runs until the end of November, that the museum closes in half an hour or that the permanent display on the second floor is shut this week. You type it into the dashboard and you hear it on the next round, in the voice you pick. You need no studio and no recorded tape for that.
Third-party advertising never comes in between. In a museum with sponsors, funds and partners that carries more weight than in a shop. The music is generated and does not come from a fixed list. Your room staff, who stand there for eight hours, keep hearing new music in the same style. A changing exhibition can get a mood of its own, without anyone having to put a new list together.
Which tariff does a museum fall under at Buma and Sena?
Buma/Stemra has a page of its own about music in museums. For background music it points to the tariff for mechanical background music, based on the floor area where the music can be heard. Within that tariff category B is a closed list, with swimming and sauna baths and waiting areas without a hospitality facility among others. A museum is not on it. So you end up in category A, the residual category for everything that is not on that list. You land there because museums are not named anywhere, and category A is the dearer of the two.
At Sena it runs through the table Overige ruimtes (other spaces), and an honest note belongs with that. It is the only table in the overview without an explanation, so nowhere does it say what falls under it. It is the general table left over when none of the others fit. We are not writing here that Sena puts museums under it, because that is not what it says. If you want certainty about your own situation, ask in writing and keep the answer. On the Buma side, the floor areas of your rooms are added together into one bracket, as long as the same music from the same source plays everywhere. If the museum café puts something else on, you pay per space.
With RadioMatic no payment is due to Buma/Stemra or Sena, because the music is generated entirely by AI and there are therefore no rights holders. Buma/Stemra itself states that works made entirely by AI without a human creative contribution do not qualify for copyright or payment. The same applies to Sena. The law requires a phonogram released for commercial purposes, and on that ground Sena lost in court in 2025. The full reasoning is in our legal memorandum.
| Buma/Stemra | € 1,707 |
|---|---|
| Sena, including the RAAP-PPI surcharge | € 1,011 |
| Together per year | € 2,719 |
Sources: Buma/Stemra, music in museums, Buma/Stemra, mechanical background music, binding tariff text BUM.129.26/01, article 3, article 7 and article 8, Buma/Stemra, tariff sheet mechanical background music 2026, and Sena, 2026 tariff overview, page 15, table Overige ruimtes. Article 7 of BUM.129 is a closed list for category B, and the tariff sheet describes category A as all other operations with mechanical background music. The category A scale runs by floor area up to 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1,600 m², and above that per 1,600 m² more, and the Sena scale runs along the same lines. Article 8 provides that floor areas are added together where the same music from the same source plays in different spaces, and that you pay for each space separately where different music plays. Overige ruimtes is the only table in the Sena overview without an explanation. Amounts per year and base tariff, Buma/Stemra excluding VAT, Sena exempt from VAT and here including the RAAP-PPI surcharge of 26.6%. Details of other providers from their own sites, consulted on 23 September 2026.
Work out what you save on your current licence.
Slide in your situation and you will see what you currently pay in music rights every year. That amount disappears, on top of what you save on your current music subscription.
Which rooms get music, and which stay quiet?
Music in a museum competes with what there is to see and to read. Think of a room with long wall texts, an audio tour or work people stand still in front of. Music with words you can make out pulls attention away from what the visitor came for. The best setting there is often no music. In a walkway, a stairwell or a hall it works the other way round. There music fills the hollow silence and dampens the footsteps and conversations bouncing off the ceiling.
The museum café and the shop have a rhythm of their own and take more. A café on a rainy Sunday afternoon is a different space from the same café at half past ten on a Tuesday, and the music can move with the part of the day. In the shop it can be a bit more present, because people are walking around there and not sitting.
A museum also has rooms that change. An exhibition hanging for three months can get a mood of its own that fits the subject. Afterwards you set it back. With RadioMatic you set that per zone from one dashboard. The style stays, and the music is new every day.
Zones in one dashboard, on the installation already there
You do not have to replace anything. Many museums already have an amplifier with ceiling speakers or a zone system for evacuation announcements, and the stream goes into that system through the line-in. Sonos, a Chromecast or a browser on a PC by the desk work just as well. We do not supply speakers and you do not need them from us either.
Per room or per zone you set what plays, how loud, and whether anything is said. Rooms that have to stay quiet you switch off, and they stay off. With more locations or an annexe everything sits under one account, with its own mood and its own announcements per location. After your application is approved, usually within five working days, a station is live in ten minutes. The first fourteen days are free.
What you can choose from today
Look for music for your museum and you will find little. Of the suppliers we checked, not one has a page for museums or exhibition spaces. Synerplay, Backsound and Mood Media name hospitality, retail, hotels, fitness and healthcare. None of the three mentions the museum.
So you end up with a general business subscription playing music by human creators. That means two extra bills, from Buma/Stemra and from Sena. Synerplay says itself that you arrange those licences directly with the rights organisations. What that costs is set out above.
With RadioMatic the room with the film or the audio tour stays quiet, while music plays in the hall, the café and the shop. In the hall visitors hear in between that the guided tour starts at three or that the museum closes in half an hour. An exhibition hanging for three months gets a mood of its own, which you set back afterwards.
Why RadioMatic is something other than a playlist or the radio
A business owner who wants music on the premises usually picks from three things. A playlist from a streaming service, an ordinary radio station, or a royalty-free music package. This is where they differ.
| Playlist | Ordinary radio | Royalty-free | RadioMatic | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New music | Fixed list | Yes, but not your choice | Limited catalogue | New every day |
| Music that is yours alone | No | No | No | Yes, your own hits |
| Fits the time of day | Switch it yourself | No | Switch it yourself | Automatic |
| Names your business | No | No | No | Yes |
| Your own offers | No | Only if you buy advertising | No | Yes, with no studio |
| Local news and weather | No | Yes, the station’s | No | Yes, your town, your choice of topics |
| Other people’s adverts | No | Yes | No | No |
| Buma/Stemra and Sena | Payable | Payable | See the terms | Not payable |
New music every day
The station keeps getting new tracks in the same style, because the music is generated rather than drawn from a fixed list. A track that lands well with your audience comes round more often, and then it is your hit. It was made for your station and plays nowhere else.
It names your business
Between the tracks, DJ voices announce what is going on at your place. Your offer, your opening hours, this week’s deal. That used to need a studio and a voice actor.
It moves with the day
The morning, the rush and the last hour each call for something different. That is set per part of the day and happens by itself, with nobody behind the counter picking a new list.
Local news if you want it
A short bulletin on the hour about your own town, with the weather and the traffic alongside. You choose which subjects you want, or you switch it off entirely.
No one else’s advertising
On an ordinary station the business down the road advertises in between your tracks. With us, nothing comes in between that is not yours.
Every location from one screen
Each site keeps its own mood, its own promotions and its own opening hours, and you run them all from the same place.
A playlist is worn out within two weeks, and on an ordinary station the business down the road advertises in between your tracks. With us the station is yours. Your style, your announcements, and the tracks that land with your audience come round more often.
Questions that come with this
Other kinds of business
- Background music for your photo studio, without Buma and SenaPhoto studios and recording spaces
- Background music for your pharmacy, without Buma and SenaPharmacies and health centres
- Music for your practice. Waiting room and treatment rooms for one amountFor medical practices
- Background music for your hotel, without Buma and SenaBackground music for hotels
Ready to hear it for yourself?
Request access to the beta. Your own station for your business, 14 days free trial, and monthly cancellation if you pay monthly.